ScienceDaily (May 11, 2011) — James Collins, a pioneering researcher in the new field of systems biology and a MacArthur Genius, says: “You know the old saying: ‘a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down?’ This is more like ‘a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine work.’ Dr. Collins, a professor of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University who is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and a core faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, is talking about his recent development of an effective, low-cost -- and surprising -- way to treat chronic bacterial infections, such as staph, strep, tuberculosis, and infections of the urinary tract.